As hackers find new ways to dance around intrusion-detection systems and firewalls to attack Web servers and applications, vendors are bringing new tools to market to stop the music. One such vendor is ClickNet Security Technologies Corp., which has started shipping Entercept 2.0 and 2.0 Web Server Edition.

This latest version of Entercept uses application shielding that protects Web-server applications. The software proactively protects the host by examining requests, before they're processed, to the operating system and the application-programming interface.

Gartner Group analyst John Pescatore says Entercept stands out from other intrusion-detection tools because it not only alerts network managers to potential suspicious activity on their network, but it blocks the attack. "This software can be configured to monitor network alarms, or respond to attacks as they occur," he says.

Robert Boyle, CEO of the MSP, Tellurian Networks, Inc. says that's what attracted him to Entercept. "It seems to have the potential to stop attacks as they occur, even distributed denial-of-service attacks," he says. "Nothing else I've looked at has the ability to stop hacker attacks before they damage Internet servers and erode our customers' confidence in our network."